Lorena Borjas

Lorena Borjas was a transgender immigrant activist from Veracruz, Mexico. She immigrated to the States when she was twenty to seek hormone replacement therapy to transition. She settled in the neighborhood of Jackson Heights in Queens, New York. Living in a household with twenty other transgender women, most of whom were sex workers, she helped provide them aide when they needed her help. In the 90s Lorena was also a sex worker. She ultimately found herself in an abusive relationship where she was a victim of sex trafficking and became addicted to drugs. She was arrested for facilitating a crime and was found guilty, when in fact she was the victim of sex trafficking and forced sex work. This jeopardized her status and led to her facing deportation. Eventually in 2010 she sought to get her record expunged, and was granted pardon by the governor of New York in 2016. Lorena began her activism in 1995. She helped transgender victims of sex trafficking, opening up her home for women who were overlooked and neglected by their families for being transgender. Her home also became a place for women to get tested for HIV and a place for women to get supplies for their hormone replacement therapy. Borjas founded the Lorena Borjas Community Fund that helps fund bail, and gets legal representation for trans women stuck in the arrest, jail, deportation cycle. Lorena was and still is the guardian angel for the transgender community in Queens and nationwide. We lost Lorena due to COVID-19 on March 30th, 2020, but her legacy will always live on. __________________________ Kazayra Miranda Gonzalez is a queer, self-taught artist who works primarily in oil and digital painting and whose work focuses primarily on portraits. Kazayra immigrated from Lebaron, Chihuahua, Mexico to Atlanta, Georgia with their parents at the age of four. Before moving to Oakland at the beginning of 2019, Kazayra spent the beginning of their life in Georgia: it’s where they grew up, fell in love, and where they eventually came out. It’s also where they spent almost twenty years as an undocumented immigrant. Although Kazayra began their journey as an artist to escape reality, the past few years have pushed them to engage more with their experiences as an undocumented queer immigrant. Kazayra has been a DACA recipient since 2012, when the program was implemented by former President Obama. They did not seek further college education because they didn’t know if that was a realistic option at the end of their high school career. They were also afraid of pursuing higher education due to their undocumented status. That, however, never stopped Kazayra from learning the skills they have today. Kazayra’s love for art began when they were a small child, diving into Frida Kahlo books their mother had in her bedroom. The boldness and the pain emanating from Frida Kahlo's paintings is something they’ve always sought to capture in their work as well, especially recently as they began exploring the world of surrealism. Currently, Kazayra’s focus is on growing as an artist, both in technical skills and also creating from the trauma that comes from living as an undocumented queer immigrant, and the experiences that have made them who they are today. To see more of Kazayra’s work please visit www.kazayra.com